Angry Conservatives are telling the party's leadership that David Cameron must break up his "chums circle" running the party and bring on board veterans who were largely excluded from the election campaign.

Amid mounting recriminations over Cameron's failure to secure an overall parliamentary majority, Tory anger is focused on the tight circle that ran the campaign and the relatively inexperienced shadow ministers who sold the Tory message on television.

Conservative officials, who will start to be laid off tomorrow, turned on the party's director of strategy, Steve Hilton, in a series of tense encounters on Friday. Hilton is blamed for the big society, the party's central campaign message about embarking on the biggest devolution of power in a generation, that crashed on the doorstep and is being dubbed by senior party figures as "gimmicky nonsense".

Lord Ashcroft, the party's billionaire donor who masterminded the Tories' campaign in the marginals, has turned his sights on the communications chief, Andy Coulson. The former editor of the News of the World was the strongest advocate of the leaders' television debates.

One senior Tory said: "If we had not had the television debates we would now be in government with an overall majority. Debates, plus big society and gimmicky nonsense equals a hung parliament. No debates, plus core message and proper politics would have equalled victory."

Tories are voicing their anger in private because they do not want to jeopardise the negotiations with the Liberal Democrats. But the ConservativeHome website has compiled a critique of the party's general election campaign which will be released once it is clear whether the Tories are entering government or, in the event of a Lib-Lab deal, remaining in opposition.

The ConservativeHome postmortem, based on lengthy interviews with all the key players, is expected to criticise Hilton and Coulson. It is also expected to say that Cameron must adopt a more collegiate style of leadership.

Senior Tories are echoing this as they say that Cameron can no longer rely solely on the likes of George Osborne, the shadow chancellor, Michael Gove, the shadow schools secretary, and Jeremy Hunt, the shadow culture secretary.

"If David Cameron becomes prime minister he will have to widen his cabinet because the shadow cabinet does not enjoy the confidence of the party," one well-placed Tory said. "These are the gang who told us to shut up because they knew how to win. Well that didn't happen."

The source added: "The Stalinist control of the leadership meant that only four and a half people were allowed on television during the campaign.

"It was George Osborne, Michael Gove, Jeremy Hunt and a bit of Theresa May and Eric Pickles. William Hague and Ken Clarke are very good but they were not used every day.

"If we go into office we would start with a weaker chancellor in George Osborne than we would wish. The cleverest and boldest thing to do would be to make Ken Clarke chancellor. Even the Eurosceptics would like that because it would show that the economy comes first. Of course that will not happen.

"But we have to get away from the leadership being dominated by Dave's chums. They all look the same – they're all around 42 or 43 and were all Oxford mates."

Tories say that Cameron needs to promote some of the older generation who were neglected during the campaign. The names doing the rounds are, in addition to Clarke, the shadow immigration minister, Damian Green, and the shadow families minister, David Willetts. Green and Willetts, who are both seen to have been highly effective in the past year, have struggled after supporting David Davis in the 2005 leadership contest.

Cameron and Osborne, who are acutely aware of the misgivings about the election campaign, moved quickly to consult all wings of the party after their failure to win a parliamentary majority. They managed to secure statements of support for the negotiations with the Lib Dems from Davis, who is respected on the right, and from the traditionalist Cornerstone Group of MPs.

The Tory leader started meeting his frontbench and senior MPs in Westminster tonight. He will hold a formal meeting of the shadow cabinet tomorrow. His office is also letting it be known that any MP can drop in and see him tomorrow afternoon.

"It is not the case that David is not talking to backbenchers," a Tory source said.

Loyalists have acknowledged that Cameron is facing criticism, though they believe it is important not to exaggerate the level of concern.

"We did not win the election so there will be misgivings. But it has to be said that from a functional point of view we had the best-run Conservative campaign in years. What threw everyone was what happened with Nick Clegg. We have lovebombed the Lib Dems in recent years," another Tory source said. "That approach – to try to capture the centre ground – became much more difficult when Clegg had his surge. It was in the latter stages of the campaign, when Clegg came under pressure on key policies on Europe and immigration, that we were then able to talk about these issues. That fortified our supporters."

These comments were echoed by Graham Brady, the former shadow Europe minister, who is planning to stand for the chairmanship of the backbench 1922 committee. "The campaign became largely dominated by the three debates," Brady said. "The last 10 days were reasonably effective in bringing people back to thinking about the outcome in terms of the government and it turned people away from the Liberal Democrats and seeking a government."

Brady, who resigned during the row over grammar schools in the summer of 2007, voiced any unease with care: "What went wrong was the management of expectations. A few months prior to the general election some of the opinion polls gave rise to some people thinking that we were going to have an immense landslide. That would have been very welcome but astonishing."